[dgellow]

Are colleges and bootcamps the only options in the US? Don’t you have apprenticeships (with and without school at the same time), technical schools (with and without working at a company at the same time), etc? I lived in Switzerland and Germany and in both country apprenticeships and technical schools are a good way to learn a technical job and directly start to be part of the industry. Surprised to not see these kind of thing mentioned here.

[bdcravens]

There are often opportunities with smaller companies, but they're not formulaic. My current employer has done that (no we're not currently hiring) and my start (albeit almost 20 years ago) came at a tiny ISP, making barely above minimum wage at the time, where I started writing code and worked my way into bigger and better jobs (I did have the fortune of starting on that path before the first dot-com bubble) However, bootcamps weren't a thing, and I had no degree at the time (I've picked up a couple of associate degrees along the way, but nothing CS)

[spicydonuts]

Apprenticeships are rare, particularly in tech. Technical schools exist, but aren't known for teaching things other than more physical work, like electricians or mechanics. Bootcamps and "desperate companies hiring more junior than they'd like without a solid plan for onboarding and teaching" fill that void. It's kinda dumb.

[paulddraper]

> Don’t you have apprenticeships

Yes, internships.

1. Can accompany school or not.

2. Limited in scope.

3. Limited in compensation.

4. Varies widely in prior experience/schooling requirements. You can almost always find a something that fits. E.g., in software engineering it's not uncommon for sans-college paths to first involve QA/test work.